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Identity Politics and Local Political Culture: The Politics of Gender, Race, Class and Religion in Comparative Perspective
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Identity Politics and Local Political Culture: The Politics of Gender, Race, Class and
Religion in Comparative Perspective
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the results of an attempt to answer certain kinds of questions about identity politics and political culture through a comparative analysis of thirty community sample survey datasets obtained from the Roper Social Capital Benchmark Survey. Although our inquiry was primarily driven by a substantive interest in learning about identity politics in various local settings, an important secondary purpose was to explore the potential of the Roper survey as a resource for comparative urban research. Our binary logit analysis of the national sample survey data showed that each identity variable we studied – gender, race, class and religion – had a statistically significant relationship with one or more of our dependent variables (political participation, ideology, and opinion about immigrants). In our independent replications of that same analysis on data for the community samples, however, the findings in many cases deviated markedly from our results for the national sample. For example, we found that whites in some communities were more likely than nonwhites to be liberal, while in other communities whites were more likely than nonwhites to be conservative. Based on these kinds of variations among communities in the magnitude and even the direction of observed relationships between identity group variables and political outcomes, we concluded that “place matters” and should be taken into account in generalizing from national surveys to local communities. To investigate why place matters, we hypothesized that variations in local political cultures might explain the observed differences among communities not only in the levels of liberalism, electoral politics activity, political protest activity, and so on, but also the differences in the effects of identity group variables on political outcomes. Drawing from the literature on political culture, we constructed a New Political Culture (NPC) index based on such community characteristics as the extent of social diversity, nontraditional families and gender roles, and acceptance of gays and lesbians. Our predictions that the NPC index scores would be positively correlated with a community’s levels of liberalism, electoral and political protest activity and pro-immigrant opinion, and negatively correlated with conservatism, were strongly confirmed. We also found that variations in local political culture helped to explain some but not all of the observed differences in the patterns of relationships between identity variables and political outcomes. For example, we found that whites become more likely and religious people less likely to engage in high levels of political protest with a shift from traditional (low NPC) to non-traditional (high NPC) environments. Variations in local political culture do not appear to be associated, however, with variations in the effects of gender and social class on protest activity. Despite the limitations of our community samples and of our methods and measures, we think our study contributes some interesting and intriguing findings about the relationships between local culture, group identities, and political outcomes in U.S. urban communities. We also believe our study demonstrates the potential of the Social Capital Benchmark Survey as a rich resource for comparative urban research. It is one that allows scholars to answer different questions about urban political life, as well as the different and higher-order kinds of questions raised by the logic of comparative social inquiry.
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| | Authors: DeLeon, Richard. and Naff, Katherine. |
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Identity Politics and Local Political Culture: The Politics of Gender, Race, Class and
Religion in Comparative Perspective
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the results of an attempt to answer certain kinds of questions about identity
politics and political culture through a comparative analysis of thirty community sample survey
datasets obtained from the Roper Social Capital Benchmark Survey. Although our inquiry was
primarily driven by a substantive interest in learning about identity politics in various local
settings, an important secondary purpose was to explore the potential of the Roper survey as a
resource for comparative urban research.
Our binary logit analysis of the national sample survey data showed that each identity variable
we studied – gender, race, class and religion – had a statistically significant relationship with one
or more of our dependent variables (political participation, ideology, and opinion about
immigrants). In our independent replications of that same analysis on data for the community
samples, however, the findings in many cases deviated markedly from our results for the national
sample. For example, we found that whites in some communities were more likely than
nonwhites to be liberal, while in other communities whites were more likely than nonwhites to
be conservative. Based on these kinds of variations among communities in the magnitude and
even the direction of observed relationships between identity group variables and political
outcomes, we concluded that “place matters” and should be taken into account in generalizing
from national surveys to local communities.
To investigate why place matters, we hypothesized that variations in local political cultures might
explain the observed differences among communities not only in the levels of liberalism,
electoral politics activity, political protest activity, and so on, but also the differences in the
effects of identity group variables on political outcomes. Drawing from the literature on political
culture, we constructed a New Political Culture (NPC) index based on such community
characteristics as the extent of social diversity, nontraditional families and gender roles, and
acceptance of gays and lesbians. Our predictions that the NPC index scores would be positively
correlated with a community’s levels of liberalism, electoral and political protest activity and
pro-immigrant opinion, and negatively correlated with conservatism, were strongly confirmed.
We also found that variations in local political culture helped to explain some but not all of the
observed differences in the patterns of relationships between identity variables and political
outcomes. For example, we found that whites become more likely and religious people less
likely to engage in high levels of political protest with a shift from traditional (low NPC) to non-
traditional (high NPC) environments. Variations in local political culture do not appear to be
associated, however, with variations in the effects of gender and social class on protest activity.
Despite the limitations of our community samples and of our methods and measures, we think
our study contributes some interesting and intriguing findings about the relationships between
local culture, group identities, and political outcomes in U.S. urban communities. We also
believe our study demonstrates the potential of the Social Capital Benchmark Survey as a rich
resource for comparative urban research. It is one that allows scholars to answer different
questions about urban political life, as well as the different and higher-order kinds of questions
raised by the logic of comparative social inquiry.
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